Crunch talks on funding for Tour break up without deal

THE battle over who will pay for Yorkshire’s hosting of next year’s Tour de France will continue later this year after crunch talks broke up without resolution.
This year's Welcome To Yorkshire conference showcased 'Tour Makers' in readiness for the forthcoming Yorkshire Grand Depart Tour De France.This year's Welcome To Yorkshire conference showcased 'Tour Makers' in readiness for the forthcoming Yorkshire Grand Depart Tour De France.
This year's Welcome To Yorkshire conference showcased 'Tour Makers' in readiness for the forthcoming Yorkshire Grand Depart Tour De France.

Further negotiations between Government and UK Sport officials and representatives from Leeds City Council and tourism agency Welcome to Yorkshire have been scheduled for the summer after a long meeting at Whitehall yesterday failed to reach a conclusion.

All sides were keen to stress the “positive” nature of yesterday’s discussions, in marked contrast to the barely-veiled hostilities which have existed between the event organisers in Yorkshire and Whitehall over recent months.

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Government quango UK Sport is seething that Welcome to Yorkshire secured the 2014 Grand Départ for the region ahead of the UK’s official bid for the race to start in Scotland.

Sports Minister Hugh Robertson rejected Welcome to Yorkshire’s subsequent request for funding and hinted on Tuesday that he felt the agency should have done more planning before securing the event.

Welcome to Yorkshire officials suspect sour grapes in Whitehall, and point out privately that they had no choice but to circumvent the official bidding process after UK Sport decided it wanted to bring the Grand Départ to Scotland ahead of the forthcoming independence referendum.

But yesterday’s meeting was described as “amicable” by all parties, and it appears a resolution on a final funding package is now significantly closer.

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A spokesman for Welcome to Yorkshire said: “We had a positive meeting with the Sports Minister and UK Sport, and will be having further meetings in the coming weeks.”

A Department for Culture, Media and Sport spokesman added: “We had an extremely positive meeting with Leeds City Council and Welcome to Yorkshire, and are working together to finalise the finance and governance arrangements to deliver a stellar Grand Départ in 2014.”

The Government has now completed detailed work on how much the event is likely to cost in total, but insists the information remains “confidential” for now.

The Treasury has agreed to contribute up to £10m, but Mr Robertson told the Yorkshire Post on Tuesday that he anticipates Whitehall will shoulder only around a third of the total costs.

Leeds City Council and several other local authorities have already agreed to pay the £5m fee for hosting the event.